Posted
by
timothy
on Wednesday July 22, 2009 @03:05PM
from the begin-the-test-of-batteries-or-vice-versa dept.

alphadogg writes "Inside a plain-looking garage on the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's campus, undergraduate Radu Gogoana and his team of fellow students are working on a project that could rival what major automobile manufacturers are doing. The team's goal is to build an all-electric car with similar performance capabilities of gasoline-only counterparts, which includes a top speed of about 161 kph, a family sedan capacity, a range of about 320 kilometers and the ability to recharge in about 10 minutes. They hope to complete the project, which they chronicle on their blog, by the third quarter of 2010. Each member of MIT's Electric Vehicle Team works almost 100 hours a week on the project they call elEVen. 'Right now the thing that differentiates us is that we're exploring rapid recharge,' Gogoana said during an interview. He said that many of today's electric vehicles take between two to 12 hours to recharge and he doesn't know of any commercially available, rapidly recharging vehicles."

I don't see a single stat there that 'outperforms' a 1994 Honda Civic - in fact it falls short on every aspect. Don't get me wrong, those specs would make the car great on paper, and I am totally behind electric powered cars, I just hate it when headlines lie.

No not really. A 5-seat Lupo 3L gets 88mpg on the highway. The new VW 2-seater arriving after Christmas gets 250mpg on the highway.

Show me an electric car that can exceed that? It doesn't exist. In fact the best EV ever made (GM EV1) is no better than a Prius (~50mpg) according to greenercars.org and falls short of an Insight (66mpg).

No not really. A 5-seat Lupo 3L gets 88mpg on the highway. The new VW 2-seater arriving after Christmas gets 250mpg on the highway.

Show me an electric car that can exceed that? It doesn't exist. In fact the best EV ever made (GM EV1) is no better than a Prius (~50mpg) according to greenercars.org and falls short of an Insight (66mpg).

You must be from Europe. Here across the pond, we get excited about 32 mpg. Silly, isn't it.

Considering the combustion engine is over 100 years old and highly refined by market demand over that time, it's not surprising. What is surprising is that they are making leaps like this with an electric car in what is arguably a technology that is still in it's infancy (not the electric motor itself, but rather the underlying technology for charging, and efficiency in a compact size).

The summary indicated it could rival what other manufacturers are doing in the field, not rival a combustion vehicle. P

No not really. A 5-seat Lupo 3L gets 88mpg on the highway. The new VW 2-seater arriving after Christmas gets 250mpg on the highway.

Ugh. Time for another round of, "Lies, Damned Lies, and Miles-Per-Gallon". First, the Lupo 3L

1) "Comparing different drivecycles": The Lupo 3L is measured on the NEDC, not the US06 and FTP drivecycles we're used to. European mileages for the same vehicle are generally about 15% higher than US combined mileages.

It's not a division by zero error, because electric cars are not perpetual motion machines. When the EPA or similar organizations compare EVs to regular cars, the electricity used by the car during the efficiency test is converted to the equivalent gallons of gasoline burned, and the EV is given an "MPG" rating. Therefore no #DIV0 error.

Bottom Line: ACEEE.org found the GM EV1 is no better than a ~50mpg Prius or Civic.

Now, now, there is no need for insults. Let us give him the benefit of the doubt. Yes, the chemical energy contained in gallon of gasoline is 33.6 kWh, but there is no engine in existence capable of using 100% of that chemical energy. (As I am certain you know, the total energy available in a gallon of gas is probably much higher, E=mc2 and all.) How about we amend the comment to "The amount of energy extracted from a gallon of gas entirely depends on the efficiency of the engine burning it." I think t

Also to be noted is that of that 33.6 kWh, you must consider the amount of energy converted into kinetic energy of the car. Because, when you combust gasoline, a lot of heat is produced. And that heat is not converted into kinetic energy, so it is essentially lost. The simple fact that we are combusting the gasoline means that there is almost no chance of ever getting close to 100% efficiency. Does anybody know what percent efficiency the average engine runs at?

Indeed, about 70-80% of the chemical energy in your gas is transformed into heat that goes out through the radiator, tailpipe, etc (this is due to the 2nd law of thermodynamics, if you want to put it that way). Only 20-30% is available as mechanical energy to the wheels (eventually all is lost to heat, through friction with air, inside the tires, and in the breaks when stopping).

33.6kWh is the energy potential of gasoline. That it is impossible to perfectly convert 100% of the chemical energy into kinetic energy is meaningless. It is just as impossible for an electric motor to turn 100% of 33.6kWh of electrical energy into kinetic energy.

To compare the efficiency of an EV to the efficiency of a gas powered car, you compare the amount of kinetic energy it can squeeze out of 33.6kWh. For gasoline engines this is done in miles per gallon. The electrical equivalent of a gallon

Ooh, *another* round of "Lies, Damned Lies, and Miles Per Gallon"! (see further down for the first installment this thread).

When a manufacturer cites an efficiency figure for an engine, that is at a single specific torque and RPM condition with no powertrain losses. In the real world, where torque and RPM are often far from the optimal band and where powertrain losses can be significant, modern gasoline vehicles average about 20% tank-to-wheels efficiency and modern diesels 25%.

>>>About the two-seater: Some of us want the ability to carry more than two (or three in extreme circumstances) people

That's fine. Keep your current SUV or whatever for those 1% of trips that need that capacity, and use the 250mpg two-seater during your daily trips.

Alternatively you could take two separate cars. In those few rare times (virtually never) I don't have enough room in my two-seater Insight, we just take two cars. The overall MPG average in that case is still 35mpg... still better th

>>>How about a [kg-X / km], where X is any desired pollutant that you care to measure?

I already referred you to greenercars.org which does exactly that. You can order their annual published report and read a pollution break-down for all current model cars, and not just at the car, but from oil-well-to-destruction.

You can also look to the EPA which also measures the grams per mile of every model car, and then rates them LEV (low emission vehicle), ULEV, or SULEV. Hybrid cars are SULEV. Electric c

Yep, my RX8 could hit 150mph (240 kph) easily. 161 kph (100mph) is hardly outperforming. I realize that most people don't generally drive that fast, but if we are going to compare specs, we should be able to hit the same speeds even if they are dangerous.

Oh, and it should cost roughly the same (~$30k) for that performance.;)

Hard to say what similar performance capability would be. I mean, they could compare it to my '70 Impala with 460 ci engine; 9 MPG, top speed past 140 MPH, and has trunk big enough for 14 full size suit cases or a dead horse (MotorTrend review quote). Or are they comparing it to my 2002 Chevy Tracker; 29 MPG, top speed 100 MPH and an carry 5 suitcases?

While a 200-mile range is low, what's the big deal? After driving 200 miles, I'm ready for a break. And for normal, in town driving, the car would recharge every night, so you could go months without visiting a "filling station." Can't do that in a gas or diesel car. Sounds like a pretty good trade off to me.

As a post-script. I'll buy that a typical automobile gets only 30% efficiency in burning gasoline, and that a typical range of a standard automobile is around 400 miles, so you can cut down on a really efficient electric automobile to roughly 100 kilowatt-hours of energy (there still is rolling and air resistance in electric vehicles). That cuts down the power circuit to a much more manageable 600 kilowatt connection. I've dealt with power on that level, and it isn't something you want to casually be sho

Yes, who would build recharge stations that are expensive and potentially dangerous. It isn't like people have made a fortune from storing volatile fuel in giant tanks where any person with a pulse can dispense it.

What's preposterous about 288KVA of load in a commercial/industrial setting like the equivalent of an electric gas station?(and yes I do work for an electric utility in their Distribution Engineering Dept.). We have MUCH larger individual customer loads than that (in the tens of Megawatts). This is not unusual.

I have seen this straw man thrown out again and again, that existing infrastructure can't possibly support the widespread use of electric cars, but you never hear that from anyone in the electrical ut

Primarily on the fact that while a 1994 Honda Civic exists, the MIT Electric car that the page describes doesn't even exist yet. Not even in the "We're heading to the track to start testing" phase. Hell, not even to the "Lets turn the key and make sure the lights work" phase.

They just finished tearing apart the donor car a week ago. So far all they have is an over weight drive train, a single power cell package prototype, and a whole lot of pipe dreams.

This story is something that belongs in The Onion...

"Local Farm Boy Dreams Up Revolutionary New Automobile"While no details on how he is going to overcome any of the significant obstacles in his way, we are excited that he has in fact been dreaming and has some ideas. Local organizations have donated some amount of parts for him to start working with, and his father has loaned him a welder.

No. In fact the biggest improvement of this car appears to be the nanophosphate battery. It doesn't use the chemicals inside traditional li-ions that become heated when overcharged (lithium particles start leaking across to the anode).

The team's goal is to build an all-electric car with similar performance capabilities of gasoline-only counterparts, which includes a top speed of about 161 kph, a family sedan capacity, a range of about 320 kilometers and the ability to recharge in about 10 minutes. They hope to complete the project, which they chronicle on their blog, by the third quarter of 2010

For more perspective lets turn that into dollars. Where I live 1 KWh costs about $0.20 for residential service. That makes 59.3 KWh cost about $11.86. Pretending it takes exactly this much electricity to drive their claimed range of 320km (198.8 miles), gives a fuel cost of 6 cents per mile. Comparing to gasoline at about $2.45 a gallon, the cost is like driving at 41 MPG. Nice, but not revolutionary. If gas goes all the way back to $4.00/gallon, the cost is like driving at 66 mpg.

But, I pay $.035 per KWh and around $2.50 per gallon, so I would get around 240mpg. Those poor bastards in Venezuela with their $.12 gas and $.95 KWh electricity would only get.42mpg. Shit, I've got a lawn mower that gets better mpg than that.

Obviously, it is hard to compare electric cars "mpg" because the cost of electricity and gasoline are different everywhere.

Holy cow, that is dangerous. The recharge time and the pollution of the batteries really kill the electric car. Most people will not be able to afford two cars. Anyone have any info on progress for a hydrogen powered car?

It's not a mispronunciation. The "jiga-" pronunciation was the one formally promoted in the US from the late 50s to the 80s. It is still, in fact, a correct but unusual pronunciation in English.

It comes from the Greek "gigas" (not bothering with unicode here), and if you've ever heard a gamma spoken in native Greek, both "jiga" and "giga" are off, but "jiga-" is a little closer. Think of ordering a gyro.

Watch the video. He explains that they are hooked up straight to the MIT power plant, and are thus able to dump huge amounts of power ("20 homes" worth) into the thing. They're pushing the envelope on the rapid recharge stuff.

The batteries can take that kind of current, it is just that it wrecks there long-term life span. Simply put, you can charge a battery almost as fast as you can discharge it. 3000 Amps at 96 V may sound like a lot to your average residential home owner, but in the scheme of things, it isn't that much power. It is only 300 kW of power. Most factories have multi-megawatt substations. With 200 A, 240 V residential services (heating usage), it is only about 6 residential homes. The total transformer capaci

I'm sure the smart folks have already considered this option for "fast charging", but why not have a big capacitor that stays plugged into your wall at home and builds charge slowly, but when you connect it to your car, it can very rapidly transfer the charge to your own capacitor. You'd basically be off-loading the slow-charge step to a place that doesn't move around anyway.

On one hand, I'm rooting them to fail because I think that no electric car can both save us from running out of gas *AND* solve all of the other problems inherent to the automobile that are also near the bursting point (like wasting tons of money to make four-lane highways filled with cars carrying only one person).

But, on the other hand, I'm looking forward to disassembling the "fast charging" system you propose to build railguns with the big capacitors.

That's one of the stupidest bloody things I have ever heard. A train is a way safer place to be than a car. Hell, they're not even in the same league!

The reason it takes you more time to get somewhere by train than by car on a (I'm assuming) congested highway isn't because transit sucks, but because transit in your area sucks. I'm guessing the main reason for that is the kind of money wasted on making four-lane highways and not train tracks.

See, this is what fascinates me the most. Even among people who claim to be atheist, cars are a religious thing, afforded faith beyond logic or rational thought that even mystical things are denied.

So, tell me, how was my wife supposed to avoid the driver who was on their cellphone who ran into my car from behind, totaling it? Your argument that you haven't had an accident in 20 years because you are driving carefully has about as much reality as the person who lived to 100 while smoking a pack a day saying that they smoked carefully. It's irrational and a perfect example of how your religious fervor for the Car as your Savior.

Nor was I telling you to get rid of your car. There is not a magical anti-car field preventing you from driving to a train station. Or riding a bike, where you can travel at least four times faster without breaking a sweat.

Mostly, after examining transportation statistics and applying them to my personal habits, I realized that if you avoid driving a car unless forced, you can burn the same amount of gasoline than a hybrid driver. Except that I come out ahead fiscally and actually discovered that I've got more time than before.

Nor do you understand that rail is a more efficient use of space. Four lanes in each direction with the accompanying noise and pollution as compared to a pair of rail lines that can be buried or surrounded by trees or otherwise gotten out of the way.

Nor do you realize that there is not a magical anti-train field preventing them from building a closer rail line. See, the same network effects that make the Internet work better when more people are on it also apply to the trains.

The problem is that there are a lot of people in America who refuse to consider that there might be a more efficient way to run things. Because you may not whisper incantations to it every morning or spend a good hour attending to it every Sunday, but you worship your car with the fervor of the most annoying televangelist.

In order to rapidly recharge those batteries, they'll need 350 kilowatts. "That's enough power to blow the fuses on 20 residential homes at once... so we'll be hooking up directly to MIT's power plant to get that kind of power," Gogoana said.

Their idea is to give you two options: (1) rapid recharge in 10 minutes at a suitable power plant, or (2) overnight recharge at home.

This is a great idea because consumers can buy it and use option #2 while more and more electric-vehicle charging stations are built as the tech becomes more mainstream. A good bridge solution.

Have you ever swapped a propane tank at a gas station? The replacement tank is usually dirty, beat up, and not actually filled to capacity. I gave up doing that a long time ago and just pay a little extra to take my tank in to be refilled. I would never consider just swapping out something as expensive as the batteries in an electric car at a gas station.

I'm no expert on these things, but as I understand it the process of power generation in a power plant is fundamentally more efficient than that undertaken in a car. An internal combustion engine is basically inefficient, as it starts and stops combustion thousands of times a second. Also, it's possible to scrub and sequester the output of stationary power plants, but not of a car. So, while running an electric car off non-renewable energy is not exactly ideal, it's better than nothing.

To me, outperform means that it will need to:1) Hit fewer pedestrians and cyclists2) Be drivable while drunk3) Not result in massive traffic jams4) Not require huge ugly parking lots and parking garages.5) Be cheap enough so that normal people, instead of rich douchebags, can afford it6) Require fewer tax subsidies.7) Allow the user to get some exercise instead of getting progressively fatter.

You know, my shelter-from-bad-weather while biking is under a pound in weight and fits nicely in my bike bag. It's the latest in space age technology. It's called a waterproof jacket, a pair of waterproof pants, a pair of clear sunglasses, and a fender for the front tire. And a hood-like thing called a Balaclava.

Actually, I wish I'd realized how not-hard it all is at an earlier age. I stopped biking when I was in college when it was raining or snowing and there was no reason why I should have.

#7 is really not their problem. If you want to bike to work, that's great, but otherwise the only way your vehicle is going to help you stay in shape is to be large enough to contain a mobile gym. Which seems pretty silly.

That gives me an idea: make an electric car that contains bicycle pedals inside. You don't have to pedal hard enough to keep the car running, but any energy you put into the pedals recharges the battery. It would keep you in shape, and would extend the range of the car, even if not by that much.

To be superior to a gasoline car, it should have more than half the range of a gasoline powered car, I should think. Most gasoline cars are sized to have about 400 miles range, which works out nicely given our average highway speed of 60--70 mph and our typical need to eat interval of five or six hours, with a 12% reserve for miscalculations.

Gogoana placed the cost of the project, excluding labor, at around $200,000, but much of the materials were donated and the Electric Vehicle Team isn't paid. The batteries alone hold a price tag of about $80,000, but Gogoana said that as more batteries and cars are produced, cost should be driven down.

Don't get me wrong, this is all cool stuff. One day relatively soon, I bet these things will be the norm.

But we need to stop with the hyperbolic comparisons to current cars. Apples and oranges. Any comparisons should be made to other types of experimental work along these lines.

It's not affordable. You can't compare performance statistics with production cars from traditional manufacturers with intended retail prices of around $50,000 when your car costs $200,000, excluding labor.

Gogoana placed the cost of the project, excluding labor, at around $200,000, but much of the materials were donated and the Electric Vehicle Team isn't paid. The batteries alone hold a price tag of about $80,000, but Gogoana said that as more batteries and cars are produced, cost should be driven down

What I want to know is...how can they create a battery strong enough to power a car for that distance/speed that be charged in 10 minutes but the battery in my cell phone and Blackberry still take no less than 45m.

I know squat about this subject, but it does seem that they have some luxuries that the BlackBerry battery doesn't have. For example, it's no problem if the car battery becomes hot to the touch while charging.

What I want to know is...how can they create a battery strong enough to power a car for that distance/speed that be charged in 10 minutes but the battery in my cell phone and Blackberry still take no less than 45m.

The batteries in your cell phone and Blackberry are lithium polymer, based on lithium cobalt chemistry. These have the highest energy density of common commercially available batteries, but their safe charging rate is limited to somewhere around 1C -- that is, 1 amp per amp-hour of capacity.

The MIT batteries are lithium iron phosphate. These unfortunately have much lower energy density than lithium cobalt polymer cells (not in the least because there's no polymer version available; the cell are in a metal casing). But they have a high power density and they can take charge rates around 4-5C (for the regular cells; they don't have the specs on the automotive cells on their website). That translates to much shorter charge times.

The size of the battery doesn't matter much, except for wire diameter issues and I guess heat. It's chemistry that really matters. The chemistry will be superior to that in your phone by say, a factor of 5 in charge speed. Then it's just a matter of charging a bunch of cells in parallel.

make an electric car that performs like a gas powered car. It only costs 20 times what gas powered car would've cost by parts alone. According TFA, the battery array alone cost 80k, but those are commercial battery packs, not research battery packs. The difference being, it'd be very very difficult to drive the price point down to under 100k. And make such cars marketable.

A lot of articles recently about electric autos. Not a lot of (no) discussion about the electrical generation and delivery infrastructure.

(paragraph)I do not know about Europe, Asia, Africa or South America; but North America doesn't have the electrical generating capacity, nor the 440V lines into the home, necessary to support lighting your room and running your PC, much less any to spare for transportation. Don't believe me? In 1969 the standard delivery into a home was 250V/125V. Today it is 215V/108V.

Each team member works almost 100 hours per week without pay? Suddenly my work schedule doesn't seem so bad. I'm guessing that most of them are taking a full load of classes as well. This sort of dedication must be the reason MIT has such a good reputation.

That's more or less typical for a research assistant in some PhD programs. Grad students are worked to the bone. The upshot for these students, at least, is they'll be able to write their own ticket once they get out of school.

In order to rapidly recharge those batteries, they'll need 350 kilowatts. "That's enough power to blow the fuses on 20 residential homes at once... so we'll be hooking up directly to MIT's power plant to get that kind of power," Gogoana said.

The primary reasons they can get it recharged quickly is using a new battery material (lithium iron-phosphate) and access to MIT's power plant. I know nothing about current grid limits, but I'd imagine we would need infrastructure changes just for a recharging station that supports 10+ vehicles every few miles. Otherwise this is your typical charge overnight on a 220V outlet electric car.

Ok, one thing that always bothers me about these electric cars is the seeming ignorance surrounding the simple notion of how to provide climate comfort within the cabin. How far will the electric car go in the winter time in Minnesota with the now electric heater running...or the air conditioner during the hot summer? Are these calculations taken into account when providing "MPG" ratings? Heat is somewhat trivial for internal combustion engines but obviously not for electric...

Its one thing to build a prototype. Its a much bigger challange to produce it. And its a much much bigger challange to produce it while conforming to a myriad of safety regulations (6 airbags, pedestrian safe, etc) get people to buy it without lawyers taking what little profit may be left when it breaks. But yeah, kudos if they get the fast recharge working. Selling out to carmakers would be a better plan than "rivaling" them.

That's exactly right. All too often people tout a new electric vehicle and then compare to existing vehicles. The problem is, all too often its an apples and oranges comparison. All too often people are actually comparing a go-cart, having no safety features with a real car.

You do if you want to do science, or be part of the global economy, or just not be an ignorant american.

While using metric units may make it a bit easier to communicate with the non-USA parts of the world, not using them certainly doesn't stop anyone from doing science (lots of science was done prior to the invention of the metric system), or from being part of the global economy (I think the USA is a pretty big player), or from learning...

If you plan on selling them anywhere BUT the USA you certainly DO need metric units. BTW, how many two liter Coke and Pepsi bottles do you have in your fridge? Rather than sixteen ounce sodas all I see are one liter ones. The only soda that comes in imperial units are twelve ounce cans.

The metric system is slowly gaining traction here. IMO that's a good thing; it cost US manufacturers lots of money to use imperial units when trying to sell elsewhere.

365 volts at 1000 amps is about ten times the available power at the average house. In order to carry this off you'd need a major upgrade of the wires going to each house, plus some interlocks so only 10% of the houses can be charging at any time.

The charging rate of 365 kilowatts, assuming a battery of 90% charging efficiency, means the battery needs 36.5 kilowatts of cooling while charging. That's one HUGE fan, or a complex liquid cooling loop.